


your midnights

by ragesyndrome



Series: safehouse [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (its not mentioned but its always kept in mind while writing so), Ace Jon, Angst, Asexual Character, Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Insomnia, M/M, Monster Jon - Freeform, Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Muslim Character, Muslim jon, New Year's Eve, New Years, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), i have nostalgia about grocery stores for some fucking reason, its just a little bit, sometimes he has too many eyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28458024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragesyndrome/pseuds/ragesyndrome
Summary: Haha so I know canonically the safehouse period only lasted like three weeks but in my version it’s been like eight months and the world still hasn’t ended, but it’s definitely still building up to that. They’ve had more time but they absolutely know it’s not going to last.This is another installment of my safehouse series but you could read it as a stand-alone it doesnt matter.Anyway I was going to write pure fluff, but Jon and Martin had a hell of a bad year, and honestly so did all of us in 2020. Happy 2021 everybody <3
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: safehouse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988704
Comments: 11
Kudos: 85





	your midnights

**Author's Note:**

> CW:  
> \- Grief & brief mention of other characters’ canonical deaths  
> \- The way I write about Jon needing statements taps a little bit into my experience with disordered eating but I don’t think it ever gets graphic  
> \- Alcohol but no actual getting drunk  
> \- Big social anxiety, mentioned in retrospect of a past event

The days were short now, and the cottage sat in snow. It had taken no small amount of effort to dig themselves out after the last storm, and they hadn’t been quick about it, not needing to really leave except for groceries. Jon wasn’t keen to admit how much the shoveling had taken out of him, but, well, there was a reason he lived in London. Used to live in London.

Anyway, his back wasn’t thrilled about the labor, but there was something nice about aching over something so mundane. A lot nicer than being attacked by servants of supernatural entities, at least. They got a fire going in the little living room hearth after clearing the walkway, and held each other close in front of the blistering heat until the warmth came back into Jon’s fingers, and Martin’s face glowed delightfully red, and actually it was all really lovely.

They deserved some loveliness, Jon kept thinking. They deserved to have this.

Christmas had been quiet. It wasn’t Jon’s holiday, although he was used to the world generally drowning him in it all of December, but Martin hadn’t been much in the mood for it this year. Hard to blame him for that; Jon himself hadn’t been keen on Eid. There’d been hot food and spiced wine and a good deal of kisses, and it had been enough.

Jon tried not to Know. He was very good at it, most of the time. But things had slipped through. The previous Christmas, Martin clutching Jon’s own nonresponsive hand in the hospital. The nurse who’d called him such a loyal _boyfriend_ and Martin couldn’t bring himself to correct her. The long cold snap and the call from the senior center that Mrs. Blackwood had passed. Peter Lukas making very real threats if he sniffed so much as a Secret Santa in the office, how Martin had placated him amidst the storm of attacks on the Institute. How he’d kept everyone alive, to the best of his ability, as long as they never saw him.

It had been, to put things lightly, a long and fucking awful year, and tucked away now in Scotland, with no jobs and no internet, there was little to do sometimes but reflect on it. Wallow in it, more like, though they tried to catch each other when that happened. At least there was this. Martin had learned how to reach for Jon when he felt the fog coming back into his chest, rendered nonverbal and going cold - how to tap Jon’s wrist and Jon would hold him and kiss his face and card his fingers through his curls until some warmth came back into the man he loved. It felt rather like putting a flimsy piece of scotch tape over a hole in a foundational structure, but it was what they had. _Never, never,_ Jon wanted to scream sometimes. Peter was dead, but the Lonely’s hold on Martin went back much farther than that. _You are never going back to that._

“You’re all mine,” he’d said once. Dark in the night, when he could barely see Martin’s face save for his eyes reflecting the pale green glow. He felt all his own extra eyes as they popped open, ephemeral in a curious spinning wheel around his head. Jon did his best to choke it down, to stifle the overwhelming possessiveness that had come over him and the _power_ that thrummed beneath it. He didn’t want to mark Martin like that, the way the Beholding whispered that he _could._

“I’d almost like that,” said Martin quietly. The quiet implication that he was _not_ all for Jon stood in clarity, and Jon thought that that was probably a good thing. He didn’t want to admit how hard it was getting to keep fighting the Eye, to keep eating and moving like a human when it would be easier to stop and See and Know. But he needed these little reasons to keep clinging to his humanity, little things like Martin’s hand outstretched with a peeled orange, or the flush of Martin’s face against the biting winter air, or the high pealing laugh he could coax out of Martin when he tried. If they were two not-quite-people these days, trying to teach each other how to not become monsters, well, they did their best. They bought a few more records and filled the house with song and Jon thought if they ended up having enough time for it, he was going to be so in love the rest of his life.

He’d let Martin go back to sleep, and eventually fallen into a fit of unconsciousness himself, if it could be called that. On the occasion that he slept, Jon felt more awake than he had in months, as he walked through the nightmares of people he couldn’t save. Sometimes they ran from him, sometimes they begged him to help. He wasn’t himself, in these moments. The way you can have a dream from someone else’s perspective and know you’re a different person for a little while, only that was normal and this was something _else_. He was only a funnel through which the Watcher drank it all in.

And when he woke, he hungered.

They’d kept him on careful rations, these past few months. Basira sent what she could, but her priority was with finding Daisy, and Jon couldn’t fault her for that. Martin had taken to hunting the internet for statements, using the old public computer down at the library to gather what he could and parse the real ones from fakes. He wasn’t bad at finding them, actually.

But there were a few residents in town with live statements to give, if only Jon could take them. He could feel them, always at the edge of his consciousness, a beacon in his periphery that he did not dare to look at too directly. He almost never went into town without Martin. He could probably do it; he was stronger in his resolve now, and Inverness had far fewer statements to offer than London. But the risk made him skittish and anxious. And Martin made him feel safe.

 _This safety is a delusion,_ his dreams whispered traitorously. Jon did not dream his own nightmares anymore but he knew if he could they would be full of Elias.

Jon hungered, and all the fear that could be available to him _yearned_ as it cried out for him to take it, his edges running ragged with need. He sublimated with paper and text, and Martin held his hands and kissed them. They played house, shoveling snow and cooking and lounging in front of the fire together, and pretended that this was really their life. That from now on, this was going to _be_ their life.

And if that was the case, they might as well make the most of it. So Jon crossed off another day on the little kitchen calendar, and remarked that they’d need to buy a new one this week, and asked if Martin liked champagne for new year’s.

“Sure,” said Martin. “Gives me a bit of a headache to be honest, but it’s nice.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Well I’m not _trying_ to give you a headache -”

Martin pressed a kiss to his temple then. “You always did, love. Anyway, really, I like the taste of it well enough, I don’t mind.”

They went to the market, shuffling quick as they could down the icy path and holding each other for warmth and steadiness. The walk back up was going to be rough, so they’d gotten in the habit of making the trip more often and carrying less. Should have gotten a car, which Martin had mentioned a handful of times, and Jon kept thinking, yes, if they’re allowed to stay here much longer they will get a car. It’s hard to settle into any feeling of permanence. He clutched at Martin’s gloved hand. _This this this this this._ He’d hold onto all of this.

The lights of the town were quaint, but they made him miss London. London in all its heavy grey and the people who never stop moving, the lights shining high enough to blot out the stars. They had a picturesque little life here, tucked away in the mountains, but Jon wished he’d gotten to be in love with Martin back home, back before everything got so bad. Before Sasha died and then Tim. Before so much death and horror had marked all of them.

“Do you remember the New Year’s party a few years ago?” Jon asked suddenly, turning the cart round the corner into the next aisle. “The one Tim bullied me into going to?”

“Yeah!” Martin grinned quickly, and then the grin fell, and he turned back to the oranges he’d been investigating. “Yeah.”

Jon shifted. “That was nice.”

Martin turned an inquisitive eye on him. “I didn’t think you had a great time.”

“Well, you know,” Jon found himself sighing, wanting to look away and move on. He wasn’t sure why he’d brought it up. “Hindsight, and all that.”

“Yeah.” Martin tossed the oranges in the cart then and walked alongside Jon, hands in his pockets but occasionally bumping lightly into Jon to keep some contact. Jon knew he hadn’t been great at parties. He never had been, always feeling too much like an imposter to get comfortable. Rosie had organized a big office party, turning the dour Institute into a glittering bauble. (And yes, the glitter had covered the floor for weeks, tracked all over even down to the archives, and yes Jon had been a prat about it.)

The whole affair took place only a few months after the Jane Prentiss attack, and between Jon’s social anxiety in general and literally _all_ the fucked up things that were going on at the time, his memories of the night were largely hazy. He remembered lots of streamers and balloons that heralded the new year, lots of people he only half-recognized and the effort of walking around and not spilling his champagne on anyone. Latching onto Tim and Sasha a bit once he found them, though looking back now Jon realized it hadn’t been Sasha at all. A chill ran down his spine. How had he not _known?_

Martin had been there, and Jon had done his best to appear completely natural and uninterested as he checked up on him. How was the new flat, must be nice not to live in the archives anymore, et cetera. The expectation to make small talk was going to kill him. He wanted to sneak away back downstairs, back to his desk where he knew there was a statement demanding his attention. Or at least go home. There was a big countdown, and Tim teased him relentlessly about how he was going to kiss him so hard at midnight, but he didn’t. It was an office party anyway, hardly anyone was doing the kissing thing.

The countdown dropped to zero and Jon took a long sip of champagne and avoided eye contact. He had a headache the next morning, more from the socializing than from any alcohol.

“Oh! Sparklers,” said Martin, ripping Jon out of memory into the present. Martin was looking at a stand full of small fireworks. Jon reached around him to grab a few boxes, just the little ones, and tossed them into the cart. Martin grinned at him then, his eyes crinkling. Jon decided that at midnight he was going to kiss Martin soundly. Certainly before then as well, but he wanted to make a point of it.

He slipped on the way back home, his knee smacking the ice hard, and, okay, unless Elias was coming for them in the next couple of days, they needed to see about acquiring a car. Martin half-supported Jon the rest of the hike up to the house, Jon’s gait only turning into a bit of a limp in the last stretch of it. It wasn’t quite the romantic image for the night Jon had planned, being firmly set down on the couch with a blanket over his lap and an ice pack, and Martin giving quite a big fuss over what was really only a light bruise.

In the end, though, cuddling on the couch with some champagne and a little fire wasn’t far from what Jon had had in mind, aching knee aside. Martin read some poetry aloud, which Jon pretended to think was horrible. _“Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane,”_ read Martin. “ _In some untrodden region of my mind / where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain / instead of pines shall murmur in the wind.”_

His voice took on a calmer intonation when he read, anxiety falling away to rhythm. Jon thought maybe that was why Martin liked it so much. That it was less about what was said and more about the cadence of it. It would explain why he liked to hear Jon read statements, full of horror though they were.

The champagne warmed his chest as it went down, and he leaned into Martin sleepily. Though he didn’t sleep most nights, there was still a difference between sitting up with the lights on and laying down to rest in the dark, and neither of them were used to staying up this late anymore. It had been easy to slip into a routine of going to bed early, up in the woods with no internet and no nightlife to speak of nearby. It was a strange thing to live out this mimicry of retirement, with the love of his life, and know it was going to be taken away. Not that he Knew, though he tried to reach out with his mind sometimes, to perceive whatever Elias had planned. Whatever it was, it was hidden from him.

They made it to midnight, Martin giggling as he counted down the seconds from Jon’s watch, and Jon set down their champagne glasses and crawled up the couch and kissed him with all the intention he could manage. He resolved himself to remember every detail of this, that this was how he’d started the new year: sighing into Martin’s mouth, Martin’s hand falling to rest at the small of Jon’s back, the red glow of the embers in the grate and the taste of bubbly wine and the pain in his knee and all this love he was never going to let go of. The yawning hunger for horror could not compete with this.

“Love you,” said Martin drowsily. His eyes were soft with tiredness, some of it the heavy weariness that never really left.

“Love you too.” Jon took his hand, and did his best not to limp as he led the way upstairs to bed. Martin went to sleep quickly, his arms wrapped all around Jon and his face rested against Jon’s heart, right where Jon could press a kiss to his hair when he wanted. He closed his eyes, and he did not sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> "Don’t read the last page,  
> But I stay, when you’re lost and I’m scared and you’re turning away.  
> I want your midnights, but I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day."  
> \- New Years Day by Taylor Swift
> 
> The poem Martin reads is “Ode to Psyche” by Keats.
> 
> I made myself sad writing this but I hope you're all having a soft and kind New Years. Leave a comment if you want, I love to see them <3


End file.
